Do I Look Like a Daddy to You?
by Xanderlike
Summary: The Boy needs his father, but sometimes the best thing a father can do is to be no father at all.


Growing up on the Kent Farm, the young Clark listened to a lot of country music. Not because he especially wanted to, but because the old radio on the tractor could only pick up one station, and anything was better than being alone with his thoughts as he tended to his chores at "human" speed.

(Because he was _not_ human, would never be human, and nothing Ma and Pa said or did could ever make him be human.) The first time he sees the Boy, the words of an old Don Williams song come to his mind: "Well look at me now, and tell me true. Do I look like a Daddy to you?"

Looking at the Boy is like looking at his reflection from half a lifetime ago.

The Boy is brash, cocky, and quick to anger. He is reckless, thoughtless. He doesn't realize how easily it'd be for him to break things, to break people.

"The Boy needs his father," Bruce tells him.

Clark isn't his father. He can't be his father.

The Boy has so much potential. He can be the one thing that Clark has never been since the moment he came to Earth. The Boy can be _whole._

Ma and Pa took little Kal-El and made him into Clark Kent. They took an alien child with incredible powers and turned him into something not unlike a human being. They took a being with the power to change—or destroy—the world and made him into someone dedicated to preserving it.

To do that, they _broke_ Kal-El.

Clark knows they didn't mean to, that they had only had the best of intentions. He does not blame them. They did not mean to make him feel _different._ They didn't plan on making him feel wrong, feel _defective._

Clark Kent could not play with other boys because he might accidently hurt them. If he laughed too hard he might shatter their eardrums. If he shook their hands he might break their fingers—or tear them off. If he kissed a girl …

So the Kents taught him _not _to do those things. They taught him not to touch other people. They taught him to make Clark Kent into the kind of person that no one else would _want _to touch.

Clark Kent could not play sports. Clark Kent could not excel in school. Clark Kent could not be the kind of boy that any girl—especially one as beautiful and talented as Lana Lang—would want to date.

Clark Kent had to be almost unbelievably clumsy. Clark Kent had to be timid. Clark Kent had to submit to authority, however wrong minded it might be.

But he lived. He lived, and so did the world.

It was almost too late when the Kents realized that he could not live as the Clark Kent he had to be without going insane—that if that was _all_ he had he would go mad.

So they made Superboy as they had made Clark Kent.

Superboy did not have to hide. He could fly in the open. He could have all the fame and adulation that would forever have to be denied Clark Kent.

But to do that, he would have to save the world.

Superboy could not fly for the simple pleasure of flight itself. He could not study the mysteries of the universe simply to acquire knowledge. Every moment that he existed as Superboy must be spent helping other people and making the world a better place.

Clark Kent could help no one. Superboy—_Superman —_must help _everyone._

Neither can help himself.

Neither can help the Boy.

The Boy looks at him and sees Superman, the world famous hero. The man who takes care of everyone. The one who takes care of the whole world.

And he does not understand why Superman cannot take care of his son.

No one does.

Not even Bruce.

Superman would teach the Boy to put the world before himself, to never allow himself the possibility of belonging, of happiness. Superman would teach the Boy to give up himself for the sake of everyone else.

And Clark Kent?

Clark Kent would teach the Boy how to shut himself away from the world, to become the kind of man that belongs nowhere.

Clark Kent would teach the Boy to be afraid.

Kal-El—the part of him that remains Kal-El—does not want that for his son.

With Young Justice, the Boy can have friends. He can have a family. He can grow up without being ashamed of who he is, what he is.

He can be _whole._

So he looks away when the Boy looks at him. He turns away when the Boy reaches out for him. He pulls back when the Boy moves towards him.

It's hard—no one will ever know hard it is for him—but he pushes the Boy away.

Sometimes the best thing a father can do is to be no father at all…


End file.
